A Haunting In Venice

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on September 21, 2023.

(M) ★★★½

Director: Kenneth Branagh.

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh.

At any moment, someone was going to start either the Time Warp or the Macarena.

Kenneth Branagh is something of an enigma as a director. Even when he was known primarily as a Shakespearean adapter, he would bounce from one seemingly unconnected film to the next, shirking the idea of a style or particular approach so as to remain invisible as a director. Nothing has changed as his career has progressed. Sometimes he shifted gears with a disconcerting clunk that left the engine lying on the road, other times he took the wheel of a film like a Formula 1 driver - for every failure (Artemis Fowl, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), there has been an incredible, perhaps unpredictable success (Thor, Cinderella, Belfast). 

Now it seems, instead of diving back into The Bard between these varied projects, he picks up an Agatha Christie tome. A Haunting In Venice completes his trilogy of directing and starring in Christie adaptions, and while it may seem like Branagh is on familiar terrain again, this is unlike any of his previous Poirot outings, or indeed anything in his back catalogue.

Taking place on a stormy night in a Venetian palazzo, 11 people have gathered for a séance. But before the night is out, the number of ghosts in the building will increase thanks to a murderous guest among the party. And it's up to the famed Belgian detective to emerge from retirement and save the day.

Unlike Branagh's past Poirot films Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile, A Haunting In Venice deviates dramatically from its source. Ostensibly taken from Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party, the film bears little resemblance to the book, yet has all the trademark plotting of Agatha Christie, aped to perfection by screenwriter Michael Green, who did a fine job on ...Orient Express and ...Nile. 

But where the story feels like its predecessors, the look and style of the film do not. Branagh leans into the ghostly elements to summon a psychological thriller that's a world away from the train- and boat-bound whodunnits of before. This is a classic horror, filled with Dutch angles and brooding darkness. It's more unsettling than scary though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Branagh overdoes it a bit though. There are long stretches where every shot is framed oddly or tilted or characters are a little too close to the lens. Yes, it's unnerving, but the effect becomes tiresome as opposed to cumulative. This repetition adds to the bizarre sensation that the film is longer than his previous Poirot outings, when in fact it is the shortest of the trilogy.

Thankfully the mystery is a good one, that unravels with care, even though the effects of the storm that keeps everyone confined to the palazzo for the night are barely invisible the day after. Coupled with the pacing, these are the only real downsides. 

Once again, Branagh has assembled a cracking cast, led by himself as the magnetic but increasingly broken Poirot. The pick of the bunch are Yeoh as a medium who may or may not be the real deal, Dornan as a doctor with PTSD, Fey as a long-time writer friend of Poirot's, Reilly as a grieving opera singer, and the precocious Hill as a disturbingly grown-up child.

It's doubtful Branagh's Poirot trilogy will be remembered in years to come with the same passion as, say, Rian Johnson's similarly arranged Knives Out films, primarily because they don't crackle with the same energy or eccentricity. But they are fun diversions no less, and though A Haunting In Venice is more grim than grin, it's a well made throwback to a time when whodunnits could also make the hairs on the back of our necks stand up.